federalidea.com

by MSM Ayub

However much one faction is small, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is divided, and leaders of the party could not hide the division, when they spoke on the present crisis, claiming as usual that this was a problem involving one individual.

Somawansa at a media briefing said that Wimal has not been expelled, and he can come to the party office in Pelawatta anytime and face to the charges levelled against him at the Central Committee.

But prior to that at the “April Heroes Commemoration” meeting held at the Viharamahadevi open gallery on April 5 he explained how people left the party from its inception and with a thundering applause said that anybody who cannot toe the party line will be purged.

[Wimal Weerawansa]

If Wimal had not been sacked or if he was not to be sacked, how was Somawansa’s speech relevant to the occasion? Who was referred to by that speech? Somawansa was questioned by a media man at the beginning of the press conference he held on April 9 to answer Wimal’s speech on the previous day in the parliament as to why he was in a joyful mood and pat came the answer saying “because the party has been purified”. It implied that Wimal has already been axed.

On the other hand, if the relationship between Wimal and the JVP had not been severed by that time, why did Wimal make a speech in the parliament accusing the party, something which cannot be expected even in an ordinary party, leave alone a party that boasts to be a revolutionary movement?

JVP leaders still claim that they will invite Wimal and his followers to the party convention that is scheduled to be held in May while Wimal told in an interview with a private television channel that he would go on his own way unless the party takes action against conspirators in the party and re-induct him and his followers into the party. Both sides are preparing to go their own way whilst attempting to tell the world that they were eager to work together, although they could not do so due to the intransigency of the other party. This is nothing other than deceit and self-deceit. They have already parted.

Still there are no policy differences between the JVP and the Wimal group, but only some differences in strategies in implementing policies can be seen.

Both sides reject the open economy that is in the country and the concept of devolution of power. Both parties promote the military solution to the ethnic problem. Both groups accept Marxism and Leninism as the basis of their political philosophy.

JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said that the party could not make use of their parliamentary group leader to speak in the parliament against the expulsion of Tamil lodgers from Colombo in June last year. In reply to this allegation Wimal says that he was basically not against the party stand and he could not make the speech since he was away from the parliament at the moment attending a meeting of Patriotic National Movement (PNM).

While citing reasons for not making that statement in the house Wimal says that tactically it was a statement that should not have been made, for it might give added voice to the LTTE and its allies.

If one accepts Wimal’s contention he would never utter a word against any harassment against Tamils since it would strengthen LTTE voice.

However, here too there was no policy difference between Somawansa and Weerawansa, it was only a difference of strategy.

Concerning the disarming of Pillaian group, no difference between the two groups of the JVP, however Wimal wants it to be done gradually strengthening the security in the east up to a level where Pillaian group’s security is ensured, while the JVP wants it to be done forthwith.

Now that the split is confirmed the country has to look forward as to what kind of new organization Wimal is going to form, what action plan he is going to put forward, would he be able to politically survive in the new environment.

Answering a question put to him at the above said TV interview as to whether he can run a new organization or a party in light of all previous factions and splinters of the JVP could not last long, a witty Wimal replied that before the October revolution in Russia in 1917 no such kind of revolutions had occurred in the world.

True, but it is also true that Groups and parties formed by those who left the JVP did not last for long. First, GID Dharmasekara, presently Anagarika Dharmasekara who supported Rohana Wijeweera in his effort to form a political party fell out with him to form the Matru Bhumi Arakshaka Sanvidhanaya before the 1971 April insurrection.

It was his organization that attacked the American embassy in Colombo on March 6, 1971 prompting the authorities to proscribe the JVP or the Che Guevera Movement as it was then called a week later and arrest its leader Rohana Wijeweera three days before imposing a state of emergency on March 16.

The Matru Bhumi Arakshaka Sanvidhanaya lived a short life until about 1975 in and outside prisons where most of the JVPers were herded by the Sirima Bandaranaike Government following the 1971 insurrection and gradually faded away. Towards the end of the prison life of most of the JVP rebels another organization was created by the dissidents of JVP who left the party for various reasons. Janatha Sangamaya, as it was known was more organized and consisted of more theoretically knowledgeable people.

They published some books and newspapers mainly criticizing the JVP, but they too did not have a political programme independent of the JVP for which reason Janatha Sangamaya also slowly died down in one or two years. Soon after the thirty odd main accused in the case against the 1971 insurgency were released in 1977 one of them Mahinda Wijesekara, a minister in the present Government started another organization called Nava Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna which could not last even months.

Just because one is popular and has powerful oratorical skills he cannot form a political party and win over the people.

He must have a political vision and a political programme that would address aspirations of at least a segment of the society and must be seen distinguished from other parties, especially from similar parties, more especially the party from which the leaders of the new party parted.

Two highly successful examples are the formation of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) by late SWRD Bandaranaike in 1951 breaking away from the United National Party (UNP) and the creation of the JVP by Rohana Wijeweera, a former student of the Patrice Lumumba University in Russia in 1965 after he was expelled from N Shanmugathasan’s communist party or the “Peking Wing” as it was then commonly known.

Bandaranaike may have been prompted by personal ambitions to break away from the UNP and to form a political party, but he could present to the country a vision and a programme that could be endorsed by a large segment of the Sri Lankan society then.

The UNP was then seen by many as a subservient ally of the former British rulers who even by then had their representative, the Governor General as the chief administrator of the country, despite Ceylon as it was then called had been granted independence in 1948.

And this had alienated many people, who were more nationalistic and influenced by the ideologies of the then powerful left movement, from the Government and the ruling party, the UNP.

Bandaranaike who might have identified these forces which existed with a lacuna of leadership put forward a vision and a political programme with the slogan of “sanga, veda, guru, govi, kamkaru” to be well received by a large segment of the country.

And within a short span of five years, at the 1956 general election he could defeat the powerful UNP which is the only party in the country even now to have spread its wings from Point Pedro in the north to Devundara in the south.

Rohana Wijeweera too could win over the youth with the help of the vision and the programme he produced through his famous “five classes” which instilled some sort of heightened confidence and self-esteem in carders of his organization.

The motivation was such that the cadres of the JVP captured police stations with a few shot guns during the 1971 insurgency.

Wimal has to prove his credentials in this regard if he is to survive as a leader of a new political party, if he is going to form one as he already has claimed. If he fails in this effort that would be end of Wimal the politician. JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva’s argument in a newspaper interview that Wimal was seen so brilliantly due to the JVP ideology is not totally wrong. But it was not only the ideology but also the craftsmanship and meticulousness with which the ideology was fashioned presented that created the politician named Wimal Weerawansa.

It is not the individual character that creates the history, but it is the history that creates individual characters, Karl Marx once wrote. Applied to Wimal who might still consider Marx as his ideological and theoretical mentor, it was the historical and political surrounding that made him sparkle and not the other way round. If he steps into a more appropriate political surrounding, a surrounding that is craving for leadership he would continue to shine.

It can be inferred from the rumours emanating from the sources close to Wimal that he will go with the PNM or build something attached to it.

Also rumours are that he has chosen the nationalistic path which is more prone to end up in communalistic politics.

However, leaving alone Wimal ,the JVP is the hardest pressure group in the country though it is not their purpose.

Despite the fact that it has emerged as a third force in Sri Lankan politics it has also created a situation where no party can institute a government on its own without the assistance of some other party especially the JVP. In other words JVP has created an unstable situation in the politics of the country and that situation itself in turn has produced a powerful pressure group by the name of the JVP.

The pressure power it had and the effectiveness of it was vividly seen when the party compelled the Chandrika Kumaratunge Government to bring the 17th Amendment to the Constitution under which several commissions aimed at good governance were established, in spite of the fact that haste in promulgating the said amendment has created fresh setbacks in the process of good governance.

Splitting the party will sag down their pressure power and it will pave way for corruption and authoritarianism that already reigns in the government and the bureaucracy. Therefore breaking the JVP for the moment is not in the interest of the country. [dailymirror.lk]